This composite image shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the North Korean national flag and a field of opium poppies in the reclusive country. / Graphic by Cho Sang-won

Online drug trafficking soars

By Kang Hyun-kyung

There is a popular belief among North Koreans that opium is a powerful medicine to treat several symptoms and minor diseases.

They take opium for an upset stomach, constipation, heart disease or even a cold. For its perceived health benefits, many North Koreans keep a small amount of opium at home as part of their first aid kits.

Opium, the dried latex extracted from opium poppies, is obtained through a relatively simple process, so ordinary North Korean citizens can produce the narcotic product easily at home "to make ends meet," according to a North Korean defector.

"The entire process is all about distilling opium poppies several times and hardening the refined liquid by adding a thickener to it," he said asking for anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. "So, producing fine opium hinges on the machinery. If the equipment is good, it's easy to obtain high-quality opium. So opium makers invest lump sums of money to design and build effective equipment."

He had been an opium retailer in North Korea and made a considerable amount of money by trafficking it to China. He escaped North Korea to avoid arrest after North Korean authorities discovered his illegal business there. He came to South Korea in 2010.

Unlike in other countries where drug production and trafficking are linked to criminal organizations, in North Korea some "money-savvy ordinary citizens" are involved in the production of the drug, despite being officially prohibited from doing so.

In the 1990s, North Korea initiated a state-sponsored project to raise opium poppies to produce opium as an export item. After it was officially scrapped after international sanctions, some civilians acquired the knowhow to extract opium from the plants and set up the necessary equipment in their homes to produce opium.

North Korea's homemade opium has become a transnational organized crime as Chinese criminal organizations have trafficked the drug outside the country, according to human rights activist Peter Chung.

"If you go to China's northeastern city of Yanji, it's easy to get North Korean drug. You can get it even at noraebang (karaoke)," he said. Chung travels to the northeastern part of China frequently to help North Korean defectors there.

Homemade North Korean opium, better known as "ice" among drug traffickers, is popular among Chinese drug dealers.

"It's cheap and natural," said the anonymous defector who trafficked opium, noting North Korean opium has no ingredients other than opium poppies and thickener.

North Korean homemade drug is different from methamphetamines, strong central nervous system stimulants made with chemical ingredients. In South Korea, meth goes by the name "philopon."

Jeon Kyoung-soo, a retired drug enforcement official and founder and president of the Institute of Drug-Related Crime, said meth is "a toxic chemical product" that destroys human organs if taken continuously. Used mainly as a stimulant, its side effects include psychological problems, weight loss, organ damage and death.

North Korean drugs have drawn public attention this week after the first son of Gyeonggi Governor Nam Kyung-pil was arrested for smuggling 4 grams of illegal drugs from China. According to police, he consumed 2 grams after vaporizing it at his home in Seoul. He was caught by undercover police while searching on a dating application for a female partner "willing to enjoy" the prohibited drug with him.

It remains uncertain whether the drug he obtained from "a Chinese" after paying 400,000 won during his recent trip to the country is North Korean opium or not.

The police called it "philopon" and provided no further details about the drug.

If South Koreans obtain a prohibited drug in China, experts say it is highly likely the drug in question is North Korean opium.

"If Governor Nam's son purchased it somewhere in the northeastern part of China, such as Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province, I'm sure it's North Korean opium," said So Jae-pyong, managing director of the Association of North Korean Defectors in Seoul.

So said North Korean opium is everywhere in Northeast China because the region is near the North Korean border where drug trafficking occurs and many ethnic Koreans live there. "If you know someone who is familiar with or engaged in the smuggling of ‘ice' from North Korea, it's easy to get it," he said.

North Korea has fields of opium poppies, of which the exact scale of production is unknown. Opium has long been a North Korean export item. In the 1990s, then-North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong-un, directed the plantation of opium poppies to earn foreign cash. The so-called White Balloon Flower Project was scrapped years later in the face of mounting international criticisms and resultant sanctions.

After that, So said "a special government agency" took over control of opium production there. "I don't know which organization it was," he said, "but the agency was part of the North Korean government."

In 2008, a Seoul-based human rights group for North Korean defectors disclosed a video tape showing a vast opium poppy field in the northeastern county of Taehung. The group said it is in the jurisdiction of the North Korean military. Once harvested, the group said the opium poppies are sent to Nanam Pharmaceuticals in the northeastern port city of Chongjin to produce opium.

Some of the handmade North Korean opium has been trafficked into South Korea via air routes and sea lanes.

In recent years, internet and social media have been increasingly used as a medium to purchase the illegal North Korean drug. In 2012, 86 drug-related suspects were caught after they traded drugs online, and the figure soared to 1,120 cases last year, according to National Police Agency.

In South Korea, trafficking of prohibited drugs has increased rapidly over the past five years. According to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, about 9,100 drug users and dealers were arrested in 2011. The figure rose to 12,000 in 2016.

There is no data on origins of the prohibited drugs, but some experts say 50 to 90 percent of what's consumed in South Korea is made in North Korea.

Porous border controls are one of the hurdles in the crackdown of the trafficking of North Korean opium.

"Guess what will happen if Governor Nam's son consumed the drug alone without seeking a partner online?" So said. "He would have not been caught."

Easy access to North Korean opium in Northeastern China is another factor that facilitates North Korean drug trafficking into South Korea.